Eyelid cleaning tool

ABSTRACT

A hand-held device for home use is disclosed for cleaning eyelids, eye margins and eye lashes. The device includes a housing, which forms a handle, and a cleaning head, attached on one end. In accordance with an important aspect of the invention, a vibration generator is used to drive the cleaning head sonically. The sonically driven cleaning head is placed in contact with one or both eye lids for each eye and either held in a stationary position or moved from side to side or back and forth. The vibration of the cleaning head in contact with the soap and effectively scrubs the upper eyelid or lower eyelid without the need for vigorous scrubbing or significant agility. The vibrating cleaning head is a more effective daily home cleaning tool for eyelids and eyelashes than known devices with rotary swabs or sponges.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to hand held tool for home use fortreating various ocular disorders associated with human eyelids.

2. Description of the Prior Art

In order to maintain optimal vision, the human eye requires propermaintenance of all its anatomical structures. A human eye is illustratedin FIGS. 2 and 3. The eyeball 10 (FIG. 2) is protected by a set ofmovable upper 12 and lower 14 eyelids. The eyelids 12 and 14 function toopen and close to protect the eye 10 from dust, debris, wind andexcessive light. The anatomy of each eyelid 12 and 14 is very complexand includes structures, such as skin, muscle, fat, lashes and oilglands. Each eyelid 12 and 14 includes eyelashes 16 and 18. The area ofthe eyelid 12 and 14 around the eyelashes 16 and 18, i.e. the area whenthe eyelids 12 and 14 close and touch each other, is known as the eyelidmargin 20 and 22.

The eyelashes 16 and 18 serve to heighten the protection of the eye fromdust and foreign debris, as well as from perspiration. The eyelid margin20 and 22 and eyelashes 16 and 18 have a unique bacterial flora thatneeds to be cared for daily fashion to prevent their natural bacteriafrom over growing and causing various eyelid disorders, such asblepharitis, sties, chalaza. The bacteria is known to result in itching,burning, red, irritated and dry eyes.

The eyelid margin 20 and 22 is also very important to maintain thehealth of the tear film because it contains special oil glands known asMeibomian glands. These unique eyelid glands supply a thin layer of oilthat, upon blinking, floats on top of the tears acting as a tearstabilizer and barrier protector of the liquid layer underneath. Eyelidmargin pathologies, such as inflammation, infection, blepharitis,Meibomian gland dysfunction leads to significant patient distress.Symptoms of these diseases include itching, burning, crusting, wateryeyes and discharge. Damage and loss of proper function of theseMeibomian glands leads to specific issues of dry eye disease.

Eye care professionals normally detect when the eyelids are in adiseased state during routine office exams. Eye care professionalscommonly treat these problems by employing various modalities includingtopical or oral antibiotics and steroids and almost always a form of athome daily eyelid margin cleaning. The various known methods forcleaning eyelids fall into several categories: 1. Gentle soap orsolution alone. 2. Gentle soap or solution on an abrasive pad. 3. Handheld instrument scrub with abrasive pad in office. 4. Hand heldinstrument scrub with abrasive pad at home.

Gentle soaps and solutions have been used for years to provide dailyhome cleaning. Baby shampoo and other soaps, such as Ocusoft, areapplied by the patient to their eyelids and rubbed in with theirfingers. Other spray-on therapy solutions use chemicals, such ashypochlorous acid, to kill eyelid bacteria. There are known problemswith these methods, such as the lack of dexterity of the patient, bothchildren and the elderly to effectively apply the treatment, thephysical time of contact of the soap to the lid margin and lashes, andthe fact many people out of worry and fear of pain or burning, are knownto squeeze their eyes tightly together when touching around their eyes.This will prevent the full effect of the treatment from beingadministered.

Applying gentle soaps and solutions to an abrasive pad or cloth, such asOcusoft, premoistened pad or Systane eyelid wipes increases thescrubbing potential but at the same time increases the need to be evenmore dexterous and cautious to the possibility of scratching the surfaceof the eyeball with the pad causing irritation or even an abrasion.

Hand-held devices are known to be used for cleaning eye lids by eye careprofessionals in an office setting. Some known hand-held devices use arotating abrasive sponge pad to clean the eyelids 12 and 14. One knownhand-held device, known as a BlephEx® machine, is disclosed in U.S. Pat.No. 9,039,718 and US Patent Application Publication No. US 2014/0214062.Treatment with such a hand-held device, while effective in the office,is not cost effective since patients must rely on office visits every 3to 6 months for treatment. Also, patients will have to fall back onother less effective methods and less expensive at-home daily eyelidcleaning.

In order to improve at-home treatment, a hand-held device was developedfor use at home to clean the eyelid margins, known as a NuLids™ soft tipdevice (https:/youtube/6aqOfECykLY). The NuLids device, available fromNuSight Medical Operations (https:/www.nusightmedical.com/), includes ahand-held tool with a moving brush. Unfortunately, the NuLids devicerequires a doctor's prescription and requires disposable pads. Also,treatment with the NuLids device requires significant amount ofdexterity to avoid touching the tips to the cornea and requires the userto look in the mirror for proper tip position. This requirement is anobstacle for those needing glasses to see and those with a general fearof touching around ones open eyes especially in children.

Thus, there is a need for an eyelid cleaning device which is simpler touse and cost effective and provides enhanced at home daily eyelid andeye lash cleaning.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Briefly, the present invention relates to a hand-held device for homeuse for cleaning eyelids, eye margins and eye lashes. The deviceincludes a housing, for example, a waterproof housing, which forms ahandle, and a cleaning head, attached on one end of the housing. Inaccordance with an important aspect of the invention, a vibrationgenerator is used to sonically drive the cleaning head. The sonicallydriven cleaning head provides improved cleaning power relative to knownrotating brush devices. In use, the sonically driven cleaning head isplaced in contact with one or both eye lids for each eye and either heldin a stationary position or moved from side to side or back and forth.The vibration of the cleaning head in contact effectively scrubs theupper eyelid or lower eyelid without the need for vigorous scrubbing orsignificant agility.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

These and other advantages of the present invention will be readilyunderstood with reference to the following specification and attacheddrawing wherein:

FIG. 1 is a front view of a hand-held device, shown partially brokenaway, in accordance with the present invention device.

FIG. 2 is a profile view of a human eye illustrating the upper and lowereyelids and eyelashes along the lid margins.

FIG. 3 is similar to FIG. 2 but shown partially closed.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of vibration system that causes the cleaninghead to vibrate.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a hand-held device for home use,generally identified with the reference numeral 30, for cleaningeyelids, eye margins and eye lashes. The device 30 includes a housing,for example, a waterproof housing, which forms a handle, and a cleaninghead, attached on one end of the housing. In accordance with animportant aspect of the invention, a vibration generator is used todrive the cleaning head sonically. The sonically driven cleaning head isplaced in contact with one or both eye lids for each eye and either heldin a stationary position or moved from side to side or back and forth.The vibration of the cleaning head in contact effectively scrubs theupper eyelid or lower eyelid, eyelid margins and eye lashes without theneed for vigorous scrubbing or significant agility. The vibratingcleaning head is a more effective daily home cleaning tool for eyelids,eye margins and eyelashes than known devices with rotary swabs orsponges.

The device 30 includes a housing 36, for example, a waterproof housing,which forms a handle, and a cleaning head 34 attached on one end of thehousing. The handle may be ergonomically formed for patients withdexterity issues and children. The cleaning head 34 may be rigidlyattached or removably attached to one end of the housing 36. A powersource 38 and a vibration generator 40 are carried by the housing 36.The device 30 may include conventional circuitry to allow the speedand/or amplitude of the vibrations generated by the vibration generator40 to be varied from sonic to ultrasonic speeds by way of a switch 42,located on the exterior of the housing 36.

In use, the eyelids 12 and 14 of one eye are gently closed, for example,as illustrated in FIG. 3. The device allows the upper 12 and lower 14eyelids and the eyelashes 16 and 18 to be treated by the device 30 atthe same time. The head 34 may be formed with a shallow well 43 adjacenta free end of the cleaning head 34. The well 43 is for carrying soap. Toclean the eyelids 12 and 14, a gentle soap may be disposed in theshallow well 43 and held in a stationary position in contact with theupper and lower eyelids 12 and 14 of one eye and/or gently moved fromside to side and/or up and down to change the vibrational contact withdifferent areas of the eye lids.

The head 34 of the device 30 may be formed with various shapes andcontours to enable the comfort and individual cleaning for each area ofeach eyelid. For example, the shape of the head 34 may conform to theeyelids 12 and 14 when closed. In addition, an elevated ridge may beformed in the cleaning head 43 to align with the juncture of the twoclosed eyelids, thus increasing the vibrational cleaning at the lidmargins 20 and 22 and eyelashes 16 and 18.

The cleaning head 34 may be formed from medical grade silicone, PVC, orother materials that are nonporous, bacteria resistant andhypoallergenic materials that are compatible with a human eye andeyelids. Different types of sanitizing regimens for the cleaning head 34are suitable for use with the cleaning head 41 are contemplated. Forexample, the cleaning head 34 may be dipped in a sanitizing solution,such as hydrogen peroxide, after each eyelid is cleaned. Alternatively,sterile protective covers (not shown) can be used and placed over thecleaning head 34 after each use.

There are various advantages of the tool 30 relative to known devicesfor treating eye lids. The sonically vibrating cleaning head 34 providesrelatively more effective cleaning of the eye lids, eye margins andeyelashes than other methods which utilize a rotating brush.Specifically, sonic vibrations are more efficient at removing debris onthe eyelids that conventional methods and can be used on all skin types.The sonic cleansing technology disclosed herein uses thousands ofpulsations per minute for deep eyelid cleansing. The vibrational energybreaks up crusts and deposits on the eyelids and eye margin. It alsocreates micro shock waves that can disrupt bacterial cell walls andcreates turbulence within the soap to disrupt biofilms by creatingpressure waves that creates shear forces and creates micro bubbles thatforcefully propel against the tissues to dislodge debris/bacteria.

In addition, the tool 30 requires little manual dexterity which makes itsuitable by children and the elderly with dexterity issues. It alsoallows for the eye to be gently closed during treatment which is morecomforting to persons not having to look at an object coming towardtheir eye. Also, having both eyelids treated at the same time increasescompliance and decreases treatment time.

Optionally, each eyelid 12 and 14 may be treated separately. First, agentle soap is applied to the upper eyelid 12 of one eye. In order toclean the upper eyelid 12, it is partially closed, as shown in FIG. 3.The upper eyelid margin 20 is gently rolled back by one finger. Thecleaning head 34 is placed on the exposed upper eyelid margin 20 andupper eyelashes 16 and cleaned by the vibrating action of the cleaninghead 34. The soap may be removed from the upper eye lid 12 and eyelashes16 with a gentle cloth and the cleaning head 34 is then sanitized orreplaced before cleaning the lower eyelid 14. Next, A gentle soap isapplied to the lower eyelid 14. The lower eyelid 14 is pulled down withone finger to expose the lower eyelid margin 22. The cleaning head 34 isplaced on the exposed lower eyelid margin 22 and lower eyelashes 18 andcleaned by the vibrating action of the cleaning head 34. The process isrepeated for the other eye. In one embodiment, there are no scrubbingpads or renewables to purchase for daily disposable use, the cost oftreatment is greatly minimized.

The device 30 includes a power source 38, for example, one or morerechargeable batteries, such as, lithium batteries or non-rechargeablebatteries. The batteries 40 may be located in a removable bottom portionof the housing 36 which allows the batteries 40 to be removed andreplaced or recharged. The device may also be configured to be chargedby way of a USB port accessible from outside the housing 36. The powersource 38 may also be configured to be plugged in to a conventional120-volt ac receptacle by way of an external power cord (not shown). Insuch an embodiment, a conventional circuit for converting the 120-voltac to a DC voltage suitable for operating the vibration generator 40.

Various embodiments of the switch 42 are contemplated. In oneembodiment, the vibration generator 41 and the switch 42 may beconfigured with two modes of operation: an OFF mode and a CLEANING mode.In such a configuration, the switch 42 is used to connect the powersource 38 to the vibration generator 41 in a CLEANING mode of operationwhen the switch 42 is turned to an ON position causing the cleaning head34 to vibrate. When the switch 42 is in an OFF position, the cleaninghead is stationary.

As mentioned above, the device 30 includes a vibration generator 41 thatis attached to the cleaning head 34 in order to cause the cleaning head34 to vibrate when the vibration generator 41 is turned ON. Vibrationgenerators for hand held devices are known in the art. For example, U.S.Pat. Nos. 8,272,091 and 5,138,733, as well as US Published PatentApplication Nos. US 2016/0206412; US 2015/0327964; and US 2009/0226241,all hereby incorporated by reference, disclose a suitable vibrationgenerator for use as the vibration generator 41. The vibration generator41, power source 38 and the switch 42 are all electrically coupledtogether.

Obviously, many modifications and variations of the present inventionare possible considering the above teachings. Thus, it is to beunderstood that within the scope of the appended claims, the inventionmay be practiced otherwise than as specifically described above.

I claim:
 1. A device for cleaning human eyelids and eyelashes, thedevice comprising: a housing; a power source; a vibration generatorresponsive to said power source for generating sonic vibrations; aswitch defining an OFF mode and a CLEANING mode-for-selectivelyconnecting said vibration generator to said power source in a CLEANINGmode to cause said vibration generator to generate sonic vibrations andan OFF mode for selectively disconnecting said power source from saidvibration generator, said switch and said vibration generator beingcarried by said housing; and a cleaning head attached to one end of saidhousing which causes said cleaning head to be driven by sonic vibrationswhen said vibration generator is in a CLEANING mode, wherein saidcleaning head is configured to conform to the upper and lower eyelidswhen closed to treat upper and lower eyelids and eyelashes at one time.2. The device as recited in claim 1, wherein said cleaning head isformed as an irregularly shaped block.
 3. The device as recited in claim1, wherein said cleaning head is formed from a material compatible witha human eye and eyelids.
 4. The device as recited in claim 1, whereinsaid cleaning head is further configured with a shallow well forcarrying soap.
 5. The device as recited in claim 1, wherein saidcleaning head is formed from a non-porous material.
 6. The device asrecited in claim 5 wherein said cleaning head is formed from PVC.
 7. Adevice for cleaning human eyelids and eyelashes, the device comprising:a housing; a power source; a vibration generator responsive to saidpower source for generating sonic vibrations; a switch defining an OFFmode and a CLEANING mode-for-selectively connecting said vibrationgenerator to said power source in a CLEANING mode to cause saidvibration generator to generate sonic vibrations and an OFF mode forselectively disconnecting said power source from said vibrationgenerator, said switch and said vibration generator being carried bysaid housing; and a cleaning head attached to one end of said housingwhich causes said cleaning head to be driven by sonic vibrations whensaid vibration generator is in a CLEANING mode, wherein said cleaninghead is configured to conform to the upper and lower eyelids when closedto treat upper and lower eyelids and eyelashes at one time, wherein saidpower source, and wherein said power source is configured to be poweredby an external 120-volt ac supply.
 8. A device for cleaning humaneyelids and eyelashes, the device comprising: a housing; a power source;a vibration generator responsive to said power source for generatingsonic vibrations; a switch defining an OFF mode and a CLEANING mode forconnecting said vibration generator to said power source in a CLEANINGmode to cause said vibration generator to generate sonic vibrations andan OFF mode for selectively disconnecting said power source from saidvibration generator, said switch and said vibration generator beingcarried by said housing; and a cleaning head attached to one end of saidhousing which causes said cleaning head to be driven by sonic vibrationswhen said vibration generator is in a CLEANING mode, wherein saidcleaning head is configured to conform to the upper and lower eyelidswhen closed to treat upper and lower eyelids and eyelashes at one time,wherein said power source includes one or more batteries.
 9. The deviceas recited in claim 8, wherein said one or more batteries are locatedadjacent a bottom end of said housing.
 10. The device as recited inclaim 8, wherein said housing is configured to enable the said one ormore batteries to be removed from said housing for replacement.
 11. Thedevice as recited in claim 8, wherein said housing includes chargingcontacts to enable the said one or more batteries to be charged fromoutside of the said housing.
 12. A device for cleaning human eyelids andeyelashes, the device comprising: a housing; a power source; a vibrationgenerator responsive to said power source for generating sonicvibrations; a switch defining an OFF mode and a CLEANINGmode-for-selectively connecting said vibration generator to said powersource in a CLEANING mode to cause said vibration generator to generatesonic vibrations and an OFF mode for selectively disconnecting saidpower source from said vibration generator, said switch and saidvibration generator being carried by said housing; and a cleaning headattached to one end of said housing which causes said cleaning head tobe driven by sonic vibrations when said vibration generator is in aCLEANING mode, wherein said cleaning head is configured to conform tothe upper and lower eyelids when closed to treat upper and lower eyelidsand eyelashes at one time, wherein said power source is configured toenable the speed of said vibrations to be varied.
 13. The device asrecited in claim 12, further including a switch mounted on the exteriorof said housing that enables said speed of vibrations to be selectivelyvaried.
 14. The device as recited in claim 12, wherein said power supplyis configured to enable the speed of said vibrations to be selectivelyvaried from sonic to ultrasonic speeds.
 15. A device for cleaning humaneyelids and eyelashes, the device comprising: a housing; a power source;a vibration generator responsive to said power source for generatingsonic vibrations; a switch defining an OFF mode and a CLEANINGmode-for-selectively connecting said vibration generator to said powersource in a CLEANING mode to cause said vibration generator to generatesonic vibrations and an OFF mode for selectively disconnecting saidpower source from said vibration generator, said switch and saidvibration generator being carried by said housing; and a cleaning headattached to one end of said housing which causes said cleaning head tobe driven by sonic vibrations when said vibration generator is in aCLEANING mode, wherein said cleaning head is configured to conform tothe upper and lower eyelids when closed to treat upper and lower eyelidsand eyelashes at one time, wherein said power supply is configured toenable the amplitude of said vibrations to be varied.
 16. The device asrecited in claim 15, further including a switch mounted on the exteriorof said housing that enables said amplitude of vibrations to beselectively varied.